LIKO-S will build a green production hall with a facade root wastewater treatment plant

LIKO-S is preparing to build a unique green production hall. Architect Zdeněk Fránek, whose project is being developed by progressive architect Jiri Vitek, student Zahy Hadid, and his colleagues from the studio vasi-architekti.cz, is responsible for the design.

The hall with a surface of 1040 m2 will be used by metalworks of LIKO-S, which is based in Slavkov u Brna. Architects in principles emerged from the concept of the experimental center LIKO-Noe, which uses a green facades, root wastewater treatment plants and solar panels.

The project of the green hall for Fránek Architects is handled by Ing. Ing. Jiří Vítek and his colleagues Ing. Jiří Železný and Ing. Violetta Iarmolinska.

After the LIKO-Noe Experimental Center in Slavkov, another unique industrial building will be built. Can you describe the genesis of the project?

Jiří Vítek: In 2015, LIKO-S built LIKO-Noe, a prototype of green industrial architecture. It is distinguished by the quality of its interior, its green facades have 35 ° C in the summer, while the usual metal sheet is heated up to 60 ° C. This is the most important foundation, the secondary element is the roof and facades root wastewater treatment plant, which transforms wastewater to the lake water. These principles will be transferred to a larger scale to the entire production hall.

So can be the principles of operation of LIKO-Noe arbitrarily expanded?

Jiří Vítek: The green production hall can be of any size. The base is a green roof and a green facade. We have the vision that buildings will be an integral part of the landscape, so people will not actually see the factory or production. In this case, however, it is not just the fact that on the facade is a grate with a substrate, from which under the irrigation grow herbs and even the strawberries, but also inside the production hall.

Violetta Iarmolinska: Triangular niches on the side of the building will be filled with flower pots with plants.

What benefits will this solution bring to the operating staff?

Jiří Vítek: Every workplace is more inviting when it includes flowers. It can also be assumed that in a good working environment the laborer will perform better. The first benefit is therefore visual. Flowers will help purify the air and absorb a certain amount of dust.

Jiří Železný: Last but not least, they will act as an acoustic silencer. In addition, the project counts on the use of daylight and natural ventilation, standard halls do not have that.

What restrictions may be?

Violetta Iarmolinska: Probably the rate of dust operation, although blasting or dyeing has its own closed box within the production. This concept is therefore likely to be useful to most manufacturing operations.

Although it is a prefabricated hall, the proposal is above standard. Is there an extraordinary care for the staff also inside the hall?

Jiří Železný: Hall is made up of components, which manufactures and assembles LIKO-S, that elements of the hall itself, isolation, inhall units, relocatable partitions etc. The largest inhall unit is upstairs at the back of the hall and includes offices with eight workspaces plus a place for the operation director, but also a generously designed dayroom for staff and a meeting room. The hall itself has two production compartments, each including a glass – built in-hall unit for the shift manager.

The goal is to integrate “the whole company” into a single hall.

Jiří Vítek: Exactly, business managers, leaders and other professions are in one place, which speeds up all processes, simplifies control and communication. The shift manager immediately sees if production goes according to plan.

Let’s get back to the life of the hall itself. How should water management look like?

Jiří Vítek: The fundamental problem of contemporary industrial halls is that they can not be part of the landscape. They are huge areas that do not work with rainwater, all flows out from the roof into the canal. The hall we are preparing will hold up to 95% of the rainfall. Rainfall saturates green roofs and facades and what they do not take flows into the retention tank. Captured water will be used for the facades irrigation and as usable water.

Violetta Iarmolinska: Another unique principle taken from LIKO-Noe is pumping wastewater to the roof, which, together with the facade, filters odorless waste water.

How much will the green hall cost more than standard?

Jiří Vítek: Initial construction costs will be higher in tens of percent, but the proper behavior of the hall due to the internal and external environment is a guarantee of lower operating costs. With an intelligent green facade, you save on cooling, ventilation and even partially on the heating of the building. In the longer horizon, the difference can be saved and the building can start to save the costs.

The very concept of the building suggests that customers will rather have a gentle approach to nature and image than the lowest purchase price.

Jiří Vítek: It is not primarily about making the hall as cheap as possible, but about the sustainability and the influence on the outdoors in terms of working with landscape, water and heat. As LIKO-S owner Libor Musil says, it is about whether we choose a desert or an oasis.

How difficult will be the maintenance of green elements on the building?

Jiří Vítek: LIKO-S has launched a partnership with biologist who will be using the concept in a variety of climatic, geographic conditions and orientations to determine the appropriate mix of flowers, soil and irrigation system settings. Everything is in the phase of experiment, data collection and evaluation.

Is the purpose of the facades and the root wastewater treatment plant, that the new hall does not need to be connected to the sewage system?

Jiří Železný: The goal is to not be connected to the sewage system. But it has a major hook – the environmental department does not count on it. Each building must be connected to the sewer system. So we will join the hall, but nothing will flow into the sewer system. Everyone is trying to call for sustainable buildings, but the standards themselves do not allow them, so it will be necessary to update the entire system of public administration.

Situational visualization of the location of the green production hall in the premises of LIKO-S company